Not the first, Not the last, but I'm here anyway

[Kyle Press]

Hello all. I hope everyone had a great Christmas and is looking forward to the new year. I'm on bigger pockets today to see if there is any input that can be shared on a recent initiative I've thought about pursuing and it goes like this: I recently came across the practice of buying tax foreclosed property at the county auctions. These auctions are held once a year. While browsing I came across a really nice piece of beach front land on an island community that is selling for quite literally dirt cheap. The land was assessed to be 200K plus and the opening bid is 11K. The land is surrounded by properties that is 2 million + in value. The GIS record on the county website looks good, and I am going over there on Saturday to look at it with my realtor (who would be selling the property later, and is extremely helpful to me as a part of my team). The goal is to obtain the land, build a really nice house on it, something that'll drastically increase the value of the property, and sell it all. This isn't a "get rich quick" scheme, but it is a get rich scheme. Here are a few of my roadblocks: First and foremost I am in the military. That is a blessing and a curse. If I fail, I'll at least be protected better than your average joe because of my job. On the other hand, work has a tendency of getting in the way of a lot of personal ventures, seemingly no matter what. Secondarily: I do not have a lot of funds available. I bought my first house in September of 2022, and since then have been doing quite well. I finished the basement, and live down there now while renting out all 5 bedrooms to other military members for a total of 4300 bucks. My mortgage is 2866, and I rounded up to 3K to start paying down principle. I also pay all of the utilities so its an average of 3500/3600 I am shelling out every month. I keep my BAH and the cashflow from the property. With that being said I only have 26K total in savings. I thought about pulling out a personal loan, as well as asking one of my tenants to front load all of the rent for the rest of the year now if possible to gather some funds together for bidding. The third and final obstacle is that even if I did get the winning bid on this land, I have no idea how to develop it. I could try to sell the land straight up, but I'd rather develop it and do it right. This would be something spectacular that could set me up for the rest of my life. So that's it. I am 26 years old and doing this primarily by myself, but I guess I have the biggerpockets community to turn to for advisory purposes. I also think that I see the opportunity available, I'm just in the classic scenario of "not being able to afford it" right now, although I am figuring out ways to see how I can. I think with a little bit of luck, a little bit of preparation, and a solid plan I could make this work if I really wanted to. I have the big picture down and the first step is getting the land. Nothing else happens with that and I feel like once that happens, then I can actually hash out the details of the greater deal, and if worse comes to worse just sell the land off. Let me know what you guys think, and if I am missing something, or if there is any way that I could make this deal float. Thank you, and again hope yall are doing alright out there!